Custom Load Development

good morning we're gonna talk about load development for rifle cartridges the very best the very best components should be used to develop loads we've got we've got a tremendous selection of bullets we've got a tremendous selection of powder got a number of cartridge brass manufacturers we've got wonderful chronographs I happen to use an oiler model 33 chronograph I've used it for years and years and years it's the earlier oil or model 33 I continue to use it because it's been so extremely reliable you must have a chronograph to develop rifle cartridge loads or pistol loads for that matter the thing you need to pay attention to is your chronograph your velocities and your accuracy on target and let's just listen let's just select say for instance of 270 Winchester I prefer to use Winchester brand or normal brand cartridge brass for that caliber because it's been proven to me that that those manufacturers brass probably will potentially give you a load that will shoot a tighter group than somebody else's brass we've got a great selection of primers it comes down to a 270 I always start with a remington nine-and-a-half primer again it's proven to me if that's probably as a rule one of the best primers in the 270 it also could be a federal - 10 - 10 match or maybe a Winchester large rifle primer when I develop loads I'll use all four of those primers to develop a load I feel that the go-to powders for the 270 Winchester Ezreal odor 22 or reload or 26 I found that they'd gives the highest velocity the best standard deviations a standard deviation is the average of a string of free shots or five shots whatever it might happen to be they call it a standard deviation that's basically a term that was developed and coined by Ken Euler who developed the loiter chronographs and I like to use Barnes X triple shocks nozzles or partitions or nozzle errs a cube on bullets in the 270 130 is a great bullet in any of those manufacturers bullet weight for shooting most of our game and including elk it reasonable range but the better choice would be 150 grain laws of partition if we're going to take elk into the equation a lot of cartridge the first thing that we need to do is run our cartridges through a full excise dye but making sure that we don't push that shoulder back almost all manufacturers are brass especially the 270 it's manufactured to dimension it's not over dimension it's right on dimension to fit properly chambered rifles I properly adjusted die to where it doesn't push the shoulder back you defer your case I don't do any fancy work in uniform in primer pockets or uniform in flash holes I found that the fighting that that's not necessary developing load for hunting rifles if we're expecting say a half a minute of angle group for maybe even better and I'll start with a charge look at a loading manual suggested charges I'll start maybe grain or two below their maximum lifted charge I don't start with a minimum charge I find that if I started about a grain below if their maximum list of charge and most rifles start right there that's a good starting point with those two powders with any of those bullets and if I have a load that shows a potential to want to shoot the first thing that I do increase the powder charge a half of a green at the same time paying attention to the velocities on the chronograph if the standard deviation tightened in other words the extreme velocity spread which is an average of this extreme velocity spread tightens up let's say that we've got a standard deviation of 20 with a 60 grain load for a hundred and thirty grain monastiraki Bawden in the 270 I had a half a grain that standard deviation goes from 20 down to 10 I know that I'm heading in the right direction because the tighter of the standard deviation the more uniformity we have the uniformity is particularly important when we get downrange if we don't have uniformity when we get down range then we don't we don't have the potential for accuracy the greater the velocity spread the greater the larger your groups are going to be at further distance and that changes the impact your bullet on the paper so you could have high shot you can have a low shot you can have a shot in between if you've got too tight of velocity spread so tight standard behave a standard deviations are very important once I get to the point where I think that I've done as well as I can do with the standard deviation you know I'm probably have added even another half of the green one up to 61 greens a standard deviation let's say that it went from from 10 to 7 I know that I'm going in the right direction if I went the other way I've went the other way then I went past I need to go back to where I was to the 60 and a half grain charge paying attention to the accuracy and my velocity shoot that one more time and see if it's de insistant if it is the next thing that I'm going to try is switching primers it started out with a Remington nine and a half the next thing that I'll try I'm probably going to try a federal 210 primer now we're going to pay attention to accuracy we're gonna pay attention to to our standard deviations on the target it takes them to both those things the target what the chronograph was reading the group tightened up you know you're on the right track the group is either going to tighten up or it's going to get bigger when you change one of these aspects you change the primer you change that aspect let's say that it was just about the same it didn't get any better well let's try another primer let's try a little bit hotter primer let's try the federal to ten matched primer let's see what that does bingo now our groups are tighter our standard deviations went from where we started from from ten to eight now it's down to five we're headed in the right direction we've got a match primer our accuracy the accuracy tightened up from let's say five eight seven each went down to four tenths of an inch well this rifle shoot and greed problem we may be not be able to improve that but possibly we can now we've made a gain now maybe we need to tweak our powder charge again do we need to tweak that powder charge should we try maybe a half a half a green less a half agree more try it you're not gonna know unless you tried it the next thing is our seating depth I like to start out exceeding my bullet about 30,000 off the throat often touching the rifling in the throat of the barrel we seem to have a good load combination here now we're shooting you know like sixty two greens or I mean sixty one greens the reload of 22 with a hundred and thirty grain knobs or a cube on we're shooting a federal to ten match primer we're shooting thirty thousand soft they shorten that up to twenty thousand off the rifling bingo tightens that tightens it up about another tenth of an inch now we're down to about three tenths of an inch groups with this rifle well that's probably as good as you're gonna get in a hunting rifle for a hunting situation with high quality hunting bullets we should always use hunting bullets designed for hunting not match bullets to shoot game we still have another aspect here we could shorten up that seating depth to ten thousand and see what it does we see if the bullet ten-thousands closer to the rifling accuracy leaves us now we're shooting three-quarters of an instant group our standard deviation went up that tells us that we went in the wrong direction if we are loading without a chronograph you're loading in the dark it's just like standing in the closet and loading your own ammunition you can't see you're loading blind you've got to have a chronograph to develop loads for your rifle you've got to have reasonably good conditions on a still day shooting of the hundred yards once you get all this done I've got a load developed it's a good accurate load but is it an accurate load isn't the macron load it is of the hundred yards but isn't that 300 yards let's move a target out to 300 yards let's shoot this load that we just developed for this rifle that shooting three tenths of an inch let's shoot it at 300 yards early in the day when our conditions are good when the Lakes good there's not Mirage to fiddle with you let's shoot it at 300 yards now preferably when you start shooting that far if you got a rifle scope with a parallel lex adjustment on it move that fair election justment to the 300 yard mark and pay attention to your target picture your scope is it good and sharp it's a good new sharp so everything's fine good benchrest been stressed on the good good set of sandbags shoot a free shot group I always worked with free shot groups with a hunting rifle shoot at 300 yards now that free tense group we just we just shot let's say a 935 group at 300 yards well you've got a good long-range load because that load is carried out to 300 yards it's carried roughly the same it's it's come up just a little bit a few thousands load wise group group measurement wise at 300 yards you've got a good load but if that load shot at 300 yards an only shot let's say a 2-inch group did you have a condition change you have air movement what do you have did you have a light change was it the load when you move out to 300 yards it's tough to chronograph at 300 yards because the chronograph is lined up with a hundred yard target when you move to 300 yards now it's a distance and because of this it's hard to chronograph loads at longer range you could readjust things and chronograph your load and see if that was a problem but you already had checked and shot that load place and it duplicated itself at 100 so it's probably okay at 300 yards so if that load isn't shooting I said that it was but let the plume that it wasn't shooting now what do we need to do do we need to change our primer again do we need to change our primer again is a particular primer going to shoot better at 300 yards in the accuracy area than it did at 100 you don't know unless you try it this is what little developments all about and let's just back up and assume that you know this real order 22 wasn't may be quite giving you the accuracy that you wanted one of the very best powders also in the velocity and the accuracy Department is reloader 26 so let's switch let's switch and file the same procedures that I've described to you before we load or 22 let's start with reload of 26 let's just start right off probably with that suggested you know about a grain less than suggested load in the loading mania for 426 let's try that let's repeat the whole process that I've described to you the changing primers and the seating depth aspects getting that all worked out and you got to load the shooting really well with the reload of 26 once you get all these things worked out move as I said to 300 yards because we need arrival that will repeat itself and shoot that same basic minimum of angle in other words if it's shootin a half inch of a hundred an auto shoot at least an inch and a half group 300 yards because that's maintaining group size you can still call that a half minute of angle rifle at 300 yards and those are just simply the simple basics the simple things to follow while we're developing loads the other aspect of this I don't develop a load for anything without having a one inch tenth micrometer laying on the shooting bench to measure my case heads I measured the solid portion of the case head just right ahead of the extractor groove of the case I measured my cases my virgin cases I take that reading I write it down and when I fire a particular powder charge after I fire the case I get Mike back case on the solid portion of the head and if that if the case head is expanded some let's say that expanded a half a thousands well you're already at a maximum load you have confirmed on the target with your chronograph that the load shooting is performing well that's an ideal situation you have acceptable pressure acceptable pressure is allowing a maximum of one half of a thousand case that expansion with attendance taken 1/10 inch 1 inch micrometer 1/10 mean it reads in 110 thousandths of an inch you you follow these procedures you've followed a procedure of using an instrument to measure your pressure using an instrument to measure your velocity you're using quality reloading dies and quality components all these things play the role in developing accurate loads accurate safe loads for your Ifill and I always develop loads in the early early part of the morning before the temperatures came up my my shooting bench is situated in the shade the early part of the day the Sun being behind me and the Sun comes up we got you know more lit up target and by mid-morning I almost always stop any low development or for accuracy and so forth because the condition changes this gives us the ability or me the ability to allow a barrel to sit in the shade and we've got hot sunlight beating down on a rifle barrel hot powder being burnt in that barrel getting a barrel too hot I'll only shoot a three shot spring let the barrel cool completely down I'll come in reload my ammunition try it again repeat it whatever I happen to do this is what low developments all about it's actually very simple you can make it just as complicated as you want to but that's as simple as it is and you can develop loads for any rifle following the basic procedures that I've outlined to you there's a lot of other aspects I could go into loading manuals give you considerable information on you know various things to look for but these are the better guidelines to follow and if you're not getting accuracy you probably have something wrong with your rifle you have something wrong with your scope well if you follow the procedures that I've outlined you need to have somebody such as myself a professional gunsmith check your rifle you might have a barrel that's no good you might have a rifle that's not vetted properly you might have a scope that's no good you might have all three at the same time that's it folks you

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Keywords: gunsmith, load development, custom rifle, long range, long range hunting, long range shooting, custom ammo, custom ammunition, long range ammo, hunting bullet, reloading, reloader, gun maker, firearm, firearms, rifle maker, rifle building

Id: YgftpXlD3DI

Length: 19min 48sec (1188 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2017